The 16th International Conference on Service Systems and Service Management ICSSSM'19 was held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), from July 13 to 15, 2019. Supported by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), The conference was jointly hosted by CUHK-Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, and University of Electronics Science and Technology of China (UESTC).

The campus of CUHK-Shenzhen was filled with the enthusiasm and passion of the participants, making this summer even warmer. Over 330 contributions from many counties and regions such as Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, USA, Japan and Indonesia (etc.) were received and more than 210 of them were accepted after strict evaluation. One hundred and sixty-three papers were presented in 38 parallel sessions. Three of them were given the “Best Paper Award” and another three papers were given “Best Student Paper Award”.

First held in 2004, the ICSSSM has been to Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xiamen, Kunming, Dalian, Hong Kong, Troyes, Melbourne, Tokyo and so on. This international event focuses on the most frontier issues in service system and service management. It appeals the attention of International Service Management, Operation Management and Business Administration academic societies, and has become an important annual meeting of the area in the world. With the development of today's information technology, the concept of Service has evolved to Intelligent Service. Technologies such as Social Network, Big Data and Cloud Computing are changing consumers’ attitudes and their  behaviors, thus influence the design and strategic decision of service system.

Before the plenary session, the Associate Vice President of CUHK-Shenzhen Professor Xiaoqiang Cai gave a warm welcome to all the participants. Director of Research Center for Contemporary Management Tsinghua University, Professor Jian Chen gave an opening speech.

Professor Xiaoqiang Cai

Professor Jian Chen

Four prestigious professors of service system and service management were invited to give keynote speeches, and their talks were chaired by Professor Yongbo Xiao from Tsinghua University, Professor Shilu Tong from CUHKSZ, Professor Xiaolin XU from Nanjing University and Professor Yinping Mu from UESTC.

Professor Xiuli Chao from University of Michigan gave an analytic report on Dynamic Inventory Control with Stockout Substitution and Demand Learning. Professor Albert Ha from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology presented some mathematical models that have been developed to investigate the incentives for a retailer to share private demand information with a manufacturer. Professor Ming Hu from University of Toronto took a neoclassical perspective by drawing inspiration from the classic models in operations management and economics. Professor Vinod Singhal  from Georgia Institute of Technology presented a framework for conducting empirical research in service management.

The parallel sessions afterwards covered a broad range of topics, with major emphasis on theory of service science, operation management, supply chain management, medical management, and innovation management etc.. Scholars from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tongji University, South China University of Technology, Southeast University, Shenzhen University, UESTC and many other universities presented their reports.

On the evening of July 14th, the conference banquet and the awarding ceremony were held at the Castle Hotel. Professor Jiang of Northeast University introduced the host place of next year's conference and sent his kind invitation.